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Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

This is a pretty big pivot from:

  "You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin... Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly. Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency"

Turns out it will in fact be converted to fiat currency while Elon continues to pump his bags on Twitter.

  "What does the future hodl?"

In any other asset class this would be blatant, illegal market manipulation.

I believe this is what you call the ol' pump-n-dump.

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A) Tesla Inc's own purchase of bitcoin's were traded at a profit, this has nothing to do with bitcoin they earned from people buying cars with bitcoin. That's not a pivot from anything.

B) Voluntarily disclosing you are buying something, which Elon and Tesla Inc did, has nothing to do with selling it. There is no regulation in the securities or futures market that would have changed that. You are suggesting a fictional higher standard exclusively for cryptocurrencies. In the securities market, disclosure for all trades exists when the owner is more than 5% or 10% of the total supply. There is no regulation that would have applied here even if crypto was regulated like securities or futures, except possibly the disclosure that they bought bitcoin into the company balance sheet because in 2020 that would be considered a material change for any equity investor. They filed the 8-K and posted on twitter to avoid non-disclosure scrutiny, and they get a nice pump out of it from people that derive their confidence in cryptocurrencies from S&P 500 CEOs.

C) You, again. Creating negative conflated conclusions for benign crypto topics, again. Why do you do that? There is a mild chuckle to be had about Tesla goosing earnings by flipping their bitcoin within a quarter, but adding all that extra fluff onto it? Why?

Would this be okay to do as a private individual? I'm just thinking that if he doesn't mention any of his companies and just say something like: "I like this stock/crypto", if that would still be illegal and/or market manipulation.

Then some days later, make payment available with Bitcoin.

What law specifically are you referring to? Can you link to it?

Totally. That would be the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and 18 U.S. Code Sections 371, 1341, 1343, 1348, and 1349. I’ll leave it as an exercise for you if you’d like to read the full text but an analysis is available as [1].

There’s a reason Tim Cook isn’t out on Twitter shilling the companies Apple has invested in while selling their shares. I’m led to believe Club Fed isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

[1] https://www.criminallawyergroup.com/practice-areas/securitie...

Did you read your own link? It about "pump and dump" schemes and explains that they are fundamentally about false positive statements.

"Generally, securities fraud occurs when someone makes a false or misleading positive statement about a company or the value of its stock, inducing others to make a financial decision based on that false statement."

This is Musk's exact defense - he very cleverly says nothing concretely positive about anything, and very specifically puts it in a public forum with Twitter.

It's quite brilliant, although maddening to folks with less of a stomach... which is why he's in the position he's in - he makes those grey-area decisions.

Where all of them add up in the future, only time will tell - but for now, results are squarely in his favor.

Cryptocurrency is not a stock and lots of people make predictions and bold statements about other things like gold and silver.

Nothing here would be significant if the other side of the equation wasn't people soaking up the slightest drip of nonsense and turning it into a frenzy of something they don't understand.

> Cryptocurrency is not a stock and lots of people make predictions and bold statements about other things like gold and silver.

Surely you have an example then of a publicly traded company picking up a pile of assets like gold or silver, talking them up on social media while selling them?

Would your blanket exception for crypto apply to security tokens or just utility tokens?

It’s interesting that you once again accuse people of not knowing what they’re talking about because they disagree with your opinions.

Your link stated that the core of securities fraud is about making false positive statements about a company or stock.

His statements were not false and not about a company or stock. It is debatable if they were even positive. Even your quote is only saying they wouldn't convert to USD and no time frame is given.

There is no "exception" here.

> It’s interesting that you once again accuse people of not knowing what they’re talking about because they disagree with your opinions.

This is a hallucination. I didn't accuse anyone of anything. I asked if you read your link since it directly contradicts what you are saying.

> His statements were not false and not about a company or stock. It is debatable if they were even positive.

Correct, it's not about a company or a stock, which is something I led with in my initial reply ("In any other asset class this would be..." -- which I have since learned applies unevenly to security types although for the record I was talking about stock). I haven't said he committed a crime, and I do not believe he has committed a crime.

I think it's pretty distasteful however to take advantage of the crypto community he claims to champion. Your claim he's not actively working them into a froth is certainly at best a generous take. [1]

> ...not about a company or stock. > There is no "exception" here.

This I do not believe to be entirely true. Some of the rules I linked, specifically the Securities Exchange Act, are written to apply to securities, not stock (which are of course a sub-type of security). I believe, and IANAL so this should be taken with a grain of salt, that security tokens should be covered by at least that law.

How about cryptos that represent stock, like the Tesla-stock backed coin Binance launched? That might just be a job for a judge to sort out.

> This is a hallucination. I didn't accuse anyone of anything.

I was making reference to past times you've specifically accused me of not understanding crypto. With that in mind, I read "nothing here would be significant if the other side of the equation wasn't people soaking up the slightest drip of nonsense and turning it into a frenzy of something they don't understand" as referring to me. If it did not, I apologize for misreading.

However, your characterization is once again neither charitable, nor particularly civil.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2021/02/21/how-elon-...

> I think it's pretty distasteful however to take advantage of the crypto community he claims to champion.

That's not what I replied to. You said it was a pump and dump and blatant illegal market manipulation.

> Your claim he's not actively working them into a froth is certainly at best a generous take. [1]

This is a lie and another hallucination since I never said anything even remotely close to this. You said it was 'blatant illegal market manipulation' and I showed you that what you linked contradicts that explicitly.

> However, your characterization is once again neither charitable, nor particularly civil.

lol, you literally lied and invented something I never said.

> That's not what I replied to. You said it was a pump and dump and blatant illegal market manipulation.

I literally quoted my self when I said it would be illegal in a different asset. And yeah, of course he’s manipulating the price, I even showed a study where they evaluated such. And yes in my opinion he’s pumping the price so he can exit higher.

> This is a lie and another hallucination since I never said anything even remotely close to this.

> lol, you literally lied and invented something I never said.

Pretty sure this isn’t within the spirit of site rules.

You’re welcome to disagree with me but you’ll have to be civil if you’d like me to engage. There are other venues for leveling baseless personal attacks.

I suspect at this point your only goal is to win an argument at all costs, and it’s not a good look, so I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy your day!

> Pretty sure this isn’t within the spirit of site rules.

Then don't do it.

I guess this is the 'attack how you say it stage'.

You said "Your claim he's not actively working them into a froth is certainly at best a generous take. "

Show me where I said that.

You said a tweet saying they would accept bitcoin is 'blatant illegal market manipulation' and a 'pump and dump'. All I did was quote your own source to show that there are no laws being broken. Someone saying they accept a currency is not illegal no matter what happens to the price or how much it upsets you.

Quoting your own words and pointing out that you are for some reason fabricating arguments is the opposite of being uncivil. Don't make false hyperbolic statements out of frustration if you don't like having to back them up.

> I guess this is the 'attack how you say it stage'.

Like I said, I'm happy to engage with you once you decide to abide by site rules :) I'm not interested in engaging in a conversation with someone accusing me historically (and apparently, presently) of not knowing what I'm talking about and hallucinating. If you wish people to engage with you, do so civilly.

Your personal attacks are neither acceptable nor welcome, and your goal is clearly to engage in pedantry for the purposes of winning an argument rather than exploring an idea. That's not what this site is for.

Have a great day! :)

What would you call you saying I said something that I didn't say?

> Nothing here would be significant if the other side of the equation wasn't people soaking up the slightest drip of nonsense and turning it into a frenzy of something they don't understand.

But people do, and that's why we have laws against crooks and scams. Just because people are stupid, exploiting their stupidity doesn't make you less of a criminal.

In the case of crypto, the laws haven't caught up yet, and they need to do it fast.

Announcing that your company accepts a currency is not 'blatant and illegal market manipulation' or a pump and dump or a scam no matter how ridiculous people's reaction is.

No matter how upset you are, this is just a question of legality.

Read this re full self driving: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26519357

I've never seen a more blatant example of securities fraud than that. And yet he gets away with it over and over. Year after year.

Where's my full-self-driving taxi? I want to buy one and rent it out and get rich! /s

And for comic relief, see the true state of FSD "beta". Be sure to watch the videos: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26519244

It’s obvious with his pumping of doge coins.

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